The Dubai-based free zone will design and develop the platform on the blockchain technology, and act as the gateway for Indian exports to the Middle East.

Image used for illustrative purpose.
A customer shops at a Carrefour supermarket in a shopping mall in Dubai, February 6, 2012. Image for illustrative purposes.

REUTERS/Jumana El Heloueh

Staff Writer,
ZAWYA

Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC) and Mumbai-based CropData Technology Private Ltd (CDT) on February 10 signed an agreement to develop a pan-India online agricultural trading marketplace to facilitate the physical delivery of agricultural produce from some 500 logistics hubs within India to the UAE, DMCC said in a statement.

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The Dubai-based free zone will design and develop the platform on the blockchain technology, and act as the gateway for Indian exports to the Middle East.

The platform is scheduled to start operating this year in two states in India, said DMCC without giving any further details.

India was UAE's biggest trading partner in 2016, according to data from the UAE Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Authority.

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UAE IMPORTS FROM INDIA

UAE imported a total of 68.9 billion Emirati dirhams ($18.8 billion) in goods from India in 2016.

64 percent of all these goods were from the category of pearls, stones, and precious metals, followed by 4.9 billion dirhams, or around 7.2 percent of imports, of vegetable products. Textiles is the third biggest import, at 3.7 billion dirhams.

FOOD IMPORTS

UAE imported 1.7 billion dirhams of food in eight categories, including meat, preparations of meat, and products of animals.

Meat and edible meat offal is the biggest import, accounting for 693.7 billion dirhams, or 1 percent, of UAE's total imports from India.

This is followed by 586.2 billion dirhams worth of seafood, namely fish, crustaceans, molluscs and aqauatic invertebrates.